The View host Barbara Walters, who conducted an interview with Carey, said that multiple people heard Minaj say, "If I had a gun, I would shoot the b***h" after they fought during the auditions.

Carey told Walters that she "doesn't feel comfortable emotionally" after the clash and has hired extra security as a result.

"She is very concerned. She is with her twins," Walters said. "She doesn't feel that anything would happen. I'm quoting now, 'But Nicki is unpredictable' and Mariah says she can't take a chance and she has hired extra security."

Although it's unclear what triggered the outburst, a source told Mouthtoears.com that it all kicked off after Carey allegedly had a pop at Minaj before the cameras rolled.

A source said: "Nicki Minaj walked off of set because Mariah Carey kept making jabs at her.

"Nicki's manager and team convinced her to come back to the show. Mariah kept at it and called Nicki 'a b**h' and then proceeded to cuss her out. Producers had to stop filming and call it a night."

What followed was Minaj's expletive-filled rant caught on tape, with fellow panelists Keith Urban and Randy Jackson caught in the middle.

'OFF WITH YOUR HEAD'

The audio quality on the video is dodgy, but according to the website's transcript, Minaj refers to Carey as, among other things, "her f*****g highness."

"You think I'm playing. Think it's a joke! Think this is a f*****g joke!" says Minaj. "Say one more disrespectful thing to me, if you say one more disrespectful thing to me - off with your head," she screams.

"Every time you take a shot at me I'ma take it back, and if you gotta f*****g problem then handle it. I told them, I'm not f*****g putting up with your f*****g highness over there ... figure it the f**k out. Figure it out."

Fellow judge Urban, who was sitting between Minaj and Carey, then appears to try and calm the hip-hop star down.

"Oh why, whyyyyyyyy, do I have a three-year-old sitting around me?" Carey responds.

"I'm not sitting here for 20 minutes and have her run down her resume every five minutes, every day," Minaj snaps, according to the transcript.

"Listen ... I can't see my kids because you decided to make ... to have ... to have a little baby fit and going all around the stage," replies Carey.

"Good, well then go see them now, go see them now ... you're boring as f**k, you're boring as f**k," Minaj tells Carey.

Check out the censored video below:

Carey's husband Nick Cannon has since spoken out about the teardown.

"When you think about what the show is actually about and represents ... I feel like it's taking away from the quality of what Idol is all about," the America's Got Talent host told Access Hollywood Live.

"This is about people accomplishing their dreams, experts guiding these young people to do what they've done," he said.

"My wife is the strongest and classiest woman that I've ever met," he continued, "if you watch the video, she just maintains her composure ... I don't think she's moved by the theatrics and pageantry of it all. She signed up to do a job to help young people ... this is like a sidebar. I hope that's not what this show becomes, about the catfights."

He continued: "The show is solely about a singing competition. That's why America loves these shows, they want to see people reach a certain goal or win ... and then to make it about something it's not, [it] kind of shows that the producers and the network are losing their foot a little bit."

Cannon said when his wife called him after the incident, she was focused on checking in on the couple's one-year-old twins, Moroccan and Monroe.

"She called me and we were talking about the kids," Cannon explained. "At the end of the day she's a mum and that's my wife. We got diapers to change and kids to raise.

"I think that [avoiding on-set drama] was one of her main concerns. [She] signed up to be a mentor on a show that is about people accomplishing their dreams."

'IT WAS INTENSE'

Idol host Ryan Seacrest also weighed in on what went down between the divas.

"There was a very heated, intense argument towards the end of the day after a contestant did a little bit of a performance in the room," he admitted on his KIIS-FM radio show on Wednesday.

He continued: "It was intense, I'll be honest with you. And it was towards the end of the day, and there were just a few contestants to be seen...So it did get intense, and we did wrap after it."

Carey last month denied rumours of a feud between her and Minaj, telling reporters, "How can you feud in two days? I think a feud takes a little longer [to build]."

And while some believe that the videotaped showdown was spun for publicity, a source tells E! News that the tension between the divas is "real".

The insider notes that although the animosity may make "good TV," it's "proving to be a 'nightmare' for showrunner Nigel Lythgoe and his team."